Showing posts with label Lithuania. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lithuania. Show all posts

2.25.2010

The Flag You Should Have: Lithuania

So, Lithuania, you're up! Now that your northern neighbor and fellow Baltic culture Latvia has been featured in a previous segment of “The Flag You Should Have”, I do believe it is your turn to be evaluated vexillogically (and volidly). Let’s begin, shall we…



Another tricolour, eh? Admittedly, I do like the colors—they make for a pleasant combination. But, you do realize that you share the exact same set of colors with Bolivia, Ghana, Ethiopia, Mali, Togo, Cameroon, Benin, Senegal, São Tomé and Príncipe, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and the Republic of the Congo, right? I’m sure you didn’t intend to coincide with one version of the “Pan-African colors,” but here we are. Additionally, I will point out that the exact same flag as yours serves as the official flag of the department of Bolívar, Colombia. It’s worth adding as well that no one really knows why these colors were chosen. Ostensibly, they were selected due to their frequent use in traditional Lithuanian crafts, but other theories abound. Some say that "yellow stands for grain, green for forests, and red for the blood shed in defense of the nation." Regardless, the current flag was created ex nihilo at the turn of the 20th century by Lithuanian national activists, following the model that emerged from the French Revolution, that every nation needed a tricolour.